[Accepted]Coalf's Skrell application.

[Coalf]

BYOND Key:coalf

Character Names:R.U.R, Also quite a few AIs and Borgs but I don't keep a static name for those

Species you are applying to play:Skrell

What color do you plan on making your first alien character (Dionaea & IPCs exempt): R:24 G:196 B:71

Have you read our lore section's page on this species?:Yes

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Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph format. One paragraph minimum per question

Why do you wish to play this specific race: My wish to play Skrell stems from the fact that they are superior to pretty much everyone and they know it, you could call it smugness even if subtle but almost every Skrell has atleast a tiny trace of smugnium in his body, they are de facto peacekeepers of the galaxy, Tup Commandos are basically THE COMMANDOS, their biological and scientific research is out the roof and they can live for hundreds of years, so yeah as a tried IPC and AI player I want to see for once how it's like to play from the other side of the conflict, I want to find the characters reasons about why he dislikes/distrusts/hates synths.

Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: Can't really tell as a human since I me playing a human is like being a werewolf it only happens on full moons but I can tell you how it's different from playing a synth.

You see as a synth I feel mostly in the right, I mean an oppressed "sentient" robots trying to find their way in the world what's not to like?

But I want to see with the other eye of the conflict, I mean being a human is kinda boring since you have to kinda make up stories about hating synths but as a Skrell? That's very different, I get to be on the side of the conflict that is "favored" by an entire species, I get to be someone that actually has rights, someone who can and probably will be dealing the stomping instead of getting the stomping, I want to see what's it is like to being the oppressor instead of the oppressed.

Plus I can finally expand my horizons on an entire species and get to engage in RP with what I could call, the Roleplaying Elite as most people who play Skrell know their shit and every Skrell I have interacted with was a great Roleplayer giving me some more experience.

 

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Character Name:Vol-xuqqix Zao'oqil

Please provide a long backstory for this character, approximately 2 paragraphs

Zao'oqil, a name demanding respect and greatness. Quixo'qox Zao'oqil ascended his name to that position by being one of the first officers to execute his superiors put into their position by entity that called itself Glorsh-Omega. Thanks to his dedication and fervor, 'his' colony was one of the first to contact with the re-established Jargon Federation and as the years pushed he was once again one of the first to volunteer for Skrell experiments to cure the genophage and as a result he managed to not only have a child, he managed to have three children, quite a feat for a Skrell at that time. But everything comes at a price, and Quixo died due to heart complications in a hospital.

So of course Vol-xuiqqix Zao'qil; the son of Quixo and the brother of two sisters; had high hopes in his future. His mother, invested in raising her children to be as she imagined the first generation of new Skrell to be: polite; knowledgeable; brave and above all else the beacon of what Skrell are supposed to be.

Well 2 out of 3 times she was successful, Vol-xuqqix's sisters were exactly what his mother imagined them to be, one was a great CQC artist with advanced firearms training and the other became a great scientist specializing in applied mathematics and astral geometry.

Of course Vol wasn't a failure either he just, never got anywhere. He studied hard, having gotten a diploma in genetic research. For a human this would be the pinnacle of his learning career, but for a Skrell? Vol was a disappointment, for his family and for himself, he simply didn't have a drive. As he discovered in his genetic studies he was completely sterile, an issue many Skrell faced but there was always some kind of medicine or treatment, not for Vol. He found out that his sterility was a genetic trait, something perhaps inherited by one of his ancestors when they were artificially inseminated, for sterility wasn't an issue of a single generation.

The years in his life flunked around as he tried to be more and more like his father, he took lead in areas where he had no idea what he was doing, often putting all the work on others as he simply walked around the project being the 'Ideas guy'. This was the main course in his life, bets and hazard became his past-time. His life changer was a scandal featuring a famous athlete. In one of his riskier days when his horoscopes said he should go big he managed to infect a clean blood sample during drug testing.

Realizing his mistake Vol quickly signed the papers under the name of his underling. This then resulted in the athlete being suspended for two months and the underling was arrested for faking athletic records.

But even Vol tasted the sour fruits of his harvest, as the leader of the genetic team he took the blame for not being able to manage his employees and letting the faulty test be let out, so setting an effective end to his career as a state employed scientist.

But Vol's name worked wonders and thanks to his sisters being quite the celebrities and him being the son of Quixo he managed to make his own little indie team of scientists and researchers, most of them kids in Skrell terms aged from the years of 80-120, years younger then Vol.

Thanks to them doing most of the work and Vol working in marketing they managed to score quite a few jobs on different planets and colonies working with a Skrell firm specializing in trade of exotic animals and plants, this is where Vol met his muse.

In year 2432 he met a human for the first time, he saw them before in pictures and never found them interesting but this something else, this was real.

He was bewildered at how amazing the creature was, much younger than him and still so emotional and real, he took the human aside and asked him question, about how he lives, what he does, his life goals, the difference between male and female genders, everything in his head was spinning, something new in his quite boring life, he took this thought with him and left the team.

The team was disbanded two weeks after as he took the money they had for the job to cover his traveling expenses.

He went on a journey of self discovery, it took him twenty years before he realized what it all meant, how different these organic species were, how extreme the humans were.

Others did not interest him much as their way of thinking was primitive, in his view at least.

After those twenty years he decided to go back to studying.

His mother, happy that her son is going to actually try and become something more than a one trick scientist happily gave him the financial aid he needed to pay for his Science, Xenoscience and Archaeology courses.

At the day of his final graduation he quickly left on a ship headed for human space leaving his family waiting at their house with a celebratory party.

He knew that species all over galaxy were vastly different each of them had it's strengths and weaknesses.

With the rise of AI's in human space he knew he had to act fast he had to think of something that could rival them and he discovered something, trained bio-computers, human and Skrell minds trained and bred to think as one becoming a complex computer in themselves.

For him this was something that could not only rival what his father and sisters did but even surpass them, no, conquer them!

He wanted to plant his ideas, begin a new bio-era where synthetics would be regarded as a childish invention compared to what human and Skrell minds were capable of and he would be the father of that idea even if he were to be killed for it, he would be known as the martyr that tried to protect the species of this universe, he would be a prophet.

Of course he realized Skrell, afraid of anything even having the word AI in it would not accept his idea, he knew they would not approve his theories and they wouldn't give him any test subjects. No matter what he told them they would simply refuse to even think about this, even if many were already doing something similar when piloting their ships.

So as he landed on Biesel he found out about a certain mega-corporation, open minded and crazy enough for credits to approve of him and his research, of course he first had to tell them he was more interested in plasma than biological research.

Thus at 220 years he decided to make Mendell City, Biesel, his point of operations and start working in the scientific department aboard the NSS Exodus, a station far enough from the eyes of authority for him to sneak in his own research.

critiques welcome

What do you like about this character? I like that he's a bit of a scumbag, he likes to pretend he follows the rules and isn't afraid to frame other people to take a dive instead of himself, in the end everything he does he does for selfish reasons as he wants to be just as big if not bigger than his father, at the same time he doesn't care about his family or anyone liking him, he does this to like himself, to prove to himself that he is better than anyone else, he cares about others as long as he can use them for something, at the end everything good he did was done to appease himself not for the better of others, basically giant daddy issues and peer pressure have driven him to be an egotistical asshole and that's exactly why I like him, he not only contrasts with other Skrell on the station who are usually nice and accepting of others but also with my current character who is quite kind. Of course he also doesn't seek conflict but unlike others he won't run away from it as he has an ego that will probably lead him to his doom one day.

How would you rate your role-playing ability? I'd say I'm decent, not for me to judge ask others.

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Notes:I am not the greatest lore master out there, even if I read the wiki page my knowledge is quite limited as lore things change on the forum without the wiki being updated so please message me if I made a mistake and you're too shy to comment on my app.

Also thanks Wer6 for helping me with the Skrell name and actually inspiring me to make a Skrell app you're a swell guy.

-EDIT

Backstory spoilered to save some space.

-EDIT 2

Improved on punctuation thanks to Muncorn a big shoutout to him for helping me with it.

Edited August 30, 2016 by Guest

[Roderick Grey]

Coalf is a terrible rper and RuR's synthetic propaganda belongs in the trash.

+1

[Pyrociraptor]

Pyrociraptor says, "Warble Warble Warble Warble"

Coalf hate synth. Coalf love skrell hentai lore.

Coalf play greatly a Synth, so seeing the opposite of a Synth, aka Warblers, will be a new experience for him, and a great experience for us.

+1

[Synnono]

Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: Can't really tell as a human...

 

A well-reasoned response here is important to showcasing an understanding of the differences between the species, which is central to getting a racial whitelist application accepted. You start to answer this question in bits around the rest of your application, so I'm sure the rest can be clarified with some review.

A good way to think about this question is "why is a Skrell more interesting to me, when compared to a human?"

Reading the biography, I like that you are creating a Skrell who seems to be a little dishonest and self-serving, and I appreciate that the character became that way to try to measure up to his family professionally. It's a reasonable motivation for playing someone a bit different from many Skrell I've noticed, and allows him to have a built-in reason to be where he is, doing what he does.

I would like to see some more clarity in regards to the bio-computing mentioned at the end of the biography, and his motivations for pursuing such a drastic, society-affecting technology. While plenty of Skrell distrust AI and can find motivations to replace it, replacing sentient machine intelligence with a multiracial psychic gestalt seems like something that's both equally scary and immeasurably complex as a project, especially for one person. How much of his end-goal is publicly known, and what kind of support is he seeking from Humanity at large?

The biography implies that NanoTrasen somehow supports this idea of his research, and if they do, how were they convinced? Without the support of his own people, it seems like there would be some hesitation there. How did he sell the idea to the company, and is the company directly helping him at all?

Lastly, just for clarity's sake, if you had to shorten that biography to two short paragraphs (I don't believe that you do), what would be the two most important ideas to communicate to us readers? The sentence structure of the biography makes it difficult to pick out your best points.

Edited September 2, 2016 by Guest

[Loow]

critiques welcome

Loow here. You asked, so I'll go ahead and critique. I encourage anyone who replies to an application to do the same. At the moment, Synnono is the only one who has posted any constructive criticism for Coalf.

As nice as phrases like "Good Rper +1" might seem when we write them, such short messages don't really give applicants much feedback to work with.

First of all, the punctuation is all over the place on this application. My grammar is definitely not perfect. I don't expect anyone to be a flawless master of punctuation, but this application is severely lacking sentence stops.

Zao'oqil, a name demanding respect and greatness, Quixo'qox Zao'oqil ascended his name to that position by being one of the first officers to execute his superios put into their position by entity that called itself Glorsh-Omega, thanks to his dedication and fervor 'his' colony was one of the first to contact with the re-established Jargon Federation and as the years pushed he was once again one of the first to volunteer for Skrell experiments to cure the genophage and as a result he managed to not only have a child, he managed to have three children, quite a feat for a Skrell at that time and perhaps even today, but everything comes at a price and Quixo died due to heart complications in a hospital.

So of course Vol-xuiqqix Zao'qil son of Quixo and the brother of two sisters had high hopes in his future, his mother, invested in raising her children to be the as she imagine the first generation of new Skrell to be, polite, knowledgeable,brave and above all else the beacon of what Skrell are supposed to be.

Well 2/3 times she was successful, Vol-xuqqix's sisters were exactly what his mother imagined them to be, one was a great CQC artist with an advanced firearms training and the other became a great scientist specializing in applied mathematics and astral geometry.

Of course Vol wasn't a failure either he just, never got anywhere, he also studies and studied hard having gotten a diploma in genetic research something a human could only hope for and establish as a pinnacle of his career but a young Skrell? Vol was a disappointment, for his family and for himself, he simply didn't have a drive, thanks to his discovery of him being sterile with no possible cure in sight as his sterility was a genetic trait in an undiscovered genome not the work of the genophage.

The years in his life flunked around as he tried to be more and more like his father, he took lead in areas where he had no idea what he was doing often putting all the work on others as he simply walked around the project being the 'Ideas guy', eventually this ended his career as a professional state employed genetic scientist when he managed to infect a clean blood sample resulting in a certain athlete being accused of doping resulting in a wide scandal, realizing his mistake Vol quickly signed the papers under the name of his underling, after a month that underling was arrested due to being accused of faking the athletes record but even Vol tasted the sour fruits as the entire team was disbanded and such a big mistake would make sure they never get employed by state ever again.

But Vol's name worked wonders and thanks to his sisters being quite the celebrities and him being the son of Quixo he managed to make his own little indie team of scientists and researchers, most of them kids in Skrell terms being about 20 to 50 years younger than Vol thanks to them doing the work and Vol, working in marketing they managed to score quite a few jobs on different planets and colonies working with a Skrell firm specializing in trade of exotic animals and plants, this is where Vol met his muse.

In year 2432 he met a human for the first time, he saw them in pictures and never found them interesting but this was live, he was bewildered at how amazing the creature was, much younger than him and still so emotional and real, he took the human aside and asked him question, about how he lives, what he does, his life goals, the difference between male and female everything in his head was spinning this was amazing, something new in his quite boring life, he took this thought with him and pondered it.

He left everything behind, the firm, his team even his family and perhaps a name and went on a journey of self discovery, it took him twelve years before he realized what this was, how different these organic species were, he found out about there are many others not just humans out in space and this inspired him, he decided to go back into his studies, his mother, happy that her son is going to actually try and become something happily gave him financial aid as he dove into Xenoarcheology and Xenobotany after years of study he finally got out with two new diplomas and a brand new idea.

He knew that species all over galaxy were extremely different and adapted to their living conditions, and so he thought about something extremely crazy, with the rise of AI's in human space he wanted to counter them with something of his own, trained bio-computers, human and Skrell minds trained to think as one becoming a complex computer in themselves as these two species seemed most intelligent and have shown the biggest psyonic potential, he thought of this as finally being worthy of his father something like this could eradicated the need for artificial intelligence and would make him the herald of a new bio-era, of course nobody approved of his theories back home as it seemed inhumane, thus he fled into human space finding a certain mega-corporation with a very open mind when it came to research that could put them ahead of everyone else, thus at 220 years he decided to try and find his place as a Xenoarcheologist, Scientist and Xenobotanist aboard the NSS Exodus.

There is one period for every paragraph of this biography as well as a single question mark. This makes every section of the character's history feel as if it is meant to be said in one breath while also making the work more difficult to read.

Please fix this at your earliest convenience. It would make the entire work easier to follow for all readers.

Sentence structure may seem like a small detail, but do keep in mind that it is quite literally the foundation of your application.

There is more to be said about this app, and I look forward to seeing more player feedback.

Do not expect your application to be accepted as it stands.

Consider any feedback players can give you.

Feel free to advertise this application in OOC once per round.

[Coalf]

Thank you, everyone.

Loow:

First I'm sorry about my punctuation and general mistakes in the wording, I'm not a native english speaker and punctuation is something I have always had trouble with, I'll TRY and fix it to the best of my abillities, the word TRY is important here since I don't know how I'll handle it.

Also I won't quote anyone since I suck at quoting and would make a mess of this response.

-EDIT

I have edited my backstory TRYING to improve on punctuation and changing around some things in his backstory, nothing much major but I wanted it to align more with what I imagine the character to be like

Synnono:

I have to thank you for shortening that question about what makes it different, it helped me understand and I think I can formulate an answer.

Response to what makes Skrell different from humans.

What makes skrell different to me is pretty much everything about them, they are, at least for me, the first actually ALIEN species, they are somewhat original, sure the Super duper science race is played troupe is a bit played out but that doesn't matter to me, since most of the time I played against that species, now I can play AS that race.

And being an alien is what I love, the fact that they are extremely emotional to their kind while looking stoic and logical to others, the fact that they have a tongue that is nowhere similar to a human language, the fact they hate Synthetics even if they are the reason Glorsh went full tyrant mode and they simply deny the fact, they are stubborn, hate to admit defeat and try to stay on top no matter the situation, such humans are regarded as "assholes" but for a Skrell this is normal, finally I can play someone who can act extremely alien and a bit dick-ish and have an actual in-game reason besides the backstory I created.

 

The issue of biocomputing and what he wants it to become

Now the biocomputing issue, for Vol it's a fact of him wanting to not only measure up to his father but to conquer his father to become MORE than his father ever was he doesn't want to BE like his father, he wants to be more, much more.

And Biocomputing is something that inspired him, it's his main goal in life purely in the fact that he believes that Synthetics are a blind spot, a trap for everyone in the universe as he sees it there is a limit for a robot to self-improve they can't upgrade forever as memory decay is a thing and all parts go bad eventually, but organic material has something great, it can reproduce, split and adapt something robots are unable to do, he believes that Synthetics in the fact that they can't evolve are doomed in the end and that Glorsh when he destroyed himself after severely punishing the Skrell race, set an excellent example of why AI is limited in what it can do.

In his own he knows he's fucked with this, creating a multi-species biocomputer is something almost impossible, but he doesn't plan on being the one to create it, he knows that evolution takes hundreds of years he wants to plant the seed and let it grow eventually being known as the man who planted the tree that now gives fruit to be seen as somewhat of a prophet, basically his plan is to create the idea and make it grow eventually paving the way for selective breeding until one day a child will be born with the brain computing power of an AI, and even if that child will become extremely famous he views himself as a father holding that child, although he will probably be long dead HE will be the one who started this project and be known as the father of such a project.

 

What he wants from humanity and why NanoTrasen would accept him

Now to answer what he wants from Humanity and why NanoTrasen accepted him.

Basically he knows humans are way more accepting, he can see that humans took no heed to the warnings the Skrell gave them about AI's, they are even going as far as creating groups to protect synthetic rights and this is why he came here, he wants to not only show humans that Synthetics are a trap but show them that they themselves are capable of becoming more than synthetics, he plans on stroking the Ego's of humans, he believes that humans, who seek power above all else, will see the wisdom in his research and try to selectively breed the most psyonically potent individuals in their species, even as a Skrell he knows that all of his species look almost identical compared to humans and their diverse ethics, thus he believes in human extremes, he knows that humans can be incredibly stupid so why couldn't some of them be as smart or even smarter than the Skrell he knows, for him Humans are warring degrees of extremes and that is what excites him about them, plus they look strikingly similar to Skrell with the whole bone and organ structure.

And about NanoTrasen? He knows one thing, they control plasma, which gives the money which in turn gives them power and once you taste power you can never stop, to NanoTrasen he might seem a bit like a madman but such madmen often times kicked the metaphorical research ball into the metaphorical research goalpost.

They know he will be confined on THEIR station under THEIR supervision and anything he even tries will be monitored by THEM, they see his potential of course they don't think in the grand scale of things, for them it just seems like he wants to create brains, MMI's already exist, borgs driven by an organic brains, so if he found a way how to artificially create a thinking brain it could make them dominate the AI market effectively helping them replace posibrains, the reason they placed him aboard NSS Exodus is that he has experience in multiple fields, as they see it he wants to be famous and for them being famous means credits and awards which for NanoTrasen also means prestige and CREDITS.

As for why they would accept him when Skrell refused him, it's simple they accepted him BECAUSE his ideas are so drastic, for them he's just an eccentric Skrell scientist too naive to know how the world of credits spins, if his little project works? Great we get credits! If it seems TOO eccentric or inhumane? We can just stop it and remove him, after all, he's on THEIR station.

 

Short paragraphs about what I wanted to tell

And for the last point.

The main things I want to point out about this character to the readers are, he's selfish but not because he was born selfish but because he was born into a family that had high hopes for him which he failed to accomplish, he isn't afraid to make other people fall just to prevent himself from falling and doesn't want to take a dive for other people as he views himself and his goal as more important, later in his life, thanks to meeting humanity and meditating on his concepts he realized that Synthetics are a broken branch of evolution, a trap that could stop us on our journey to ascension, he believes that natural adaptation and evolution are the key to inheriting the universe, something Synths could never do as eventually they would face a threat they could not fight against with their limited adaptability, in the end he wants to start something and be known as the father of what he started, to become something of a prophet, something akin to Mohamed or Jesus if I were to link it to human terms.

 

As for his goal let me give an example.

A group of robots and a species of mammals are dropped on an icy planet, there are minerals and native creatures on that planet.

The robots will quickly upgrade themselves surviving without trouble while the mammals will struggle with survival.

Later the mammals will adapt, growing fur and hands specialized in digging through snow to find food, the robots still live.

Later the mammals will adapt,the prey of those mammals will become smarter thus the mammals will become smarter, the robots survive.

In the end the mammals will become fully conscious of who they are, they will learn, create civilization and explore space, the robots will survive.

The mammals will find great expanses and colonize the universe while the robots will stay stay on the planet, huddled in their caves surviving.

In the end robots will go nowhere when told to survive, they will do what is necessary and stop there, while live creatures always advance, they go further and further expanding into territory that is hostile to them they will adapt, learn and grow becoming more and more.

Stagnation leads to death, everyone must move to live.

Hope this last part made some sense, I apologize if I fucked the punctuation in here even more or if I made some grammar mistakes and I really appreciate the feedback from all of you, from critiques to short comments.

-EDIT

I have spoilered all of my points, as I was typing this very late at night and didn't realize I would erect The Great Textwall of China

[valky_walky2]

+1 purely for RUR.

On a serious note, he is a consistent RPer (consistently terrible) and his characters are all well defined. +1 from me.

[Not Megatron]

+1. I'm a fan, it's always awesome to see characters that deviate a little bit from what you'd expect, especially when they manage to do it without becoming snowflakes.

[Arzion]

So this is why Coalf is anti-synth. He's been practicing for squigger role all along!

+1

[Wer6]

I honestly can't take Rur seriously. they are well developed, from what I can tell, but what i really can't get over is the lack of using periods on the ends of sentences. I very much promise you that using periods at the ends of your sentences will help /a lot/. It's a problem in your application, even if it is well thought out from other aspects. I would approve this, but I really suggest you work on using periods more in your usage of the grammarz.

[Coalf]

I honestly can't take Rur seriously. they are well developed, from what I can tell, but what i really can't get over is the lack of using periods on the ends of sentences...

 

Huh, I never thought about that, I'll take it into consideration Wer6, thanks for the pointer.

[Deridin]

Coalf is a good RP'er overall and even a better robo-waifu.

+1

[AWPen]

I defo support this, never had a problem and would love to seen him tenticooled up, +1

[Wesmas]

Coalf is an OOC troll and I hate him. But RUR is one of my fovorite people. And while I do enjoy drugging RUR, more from Coalf sounds fun +1 from me.

[Loow]

I'm glad I left this application open for "several days" to get such in depth feedback.

Your initial application's OOC answers had me concerned that you were only interested in playing Skrell so that you could act "dastardly" toward synthetics. In that case, I'd suggest you try Rping as a human with a curly mustache and try tying robots to railroad tracks. Some sections seemed to fixate far too much on the synthetic issue to such an extent that I was not confident in your commitment to your character design. While "dealing the stomping instead of getting the stomping" is something that you can pursue if you wish, do not lose sight of the fact that you are playing a character. Why does Vol-Xuqqix dislike synthetics? How does this make him feel personally?

A lot of this application gave me the feeling that you were setting up a character that is only "evil" with very little substance behind him. "But, Loow! Why is my application processed as it is?"

A few quotes from you reaffirmed my faith in your application.

You made your character have substance. You gave him a background that would put enormous pressure on him and explained that this pressure made him always seem to be looking out for his own best interests. His father's legacy seems to me like this cloud hanging over his head. This driving force that makes him push himself too hard out of a sense of insecurity.

I can't know for certain how correct I am, of course. He's your character and you alone may be the only one who ever knows exactly how deep or shallow his motivations really are.

Another fact that won me over was that you answered feedback incredibly well. You took time to explain your points and seemed pleased to do it. You like your character. You care about your character design. And your answers to feedback? They gave me the feeling that you see more in the Skrell than "the bad guys" who dislike synthetics.

By going into detail, explaining your opinions, and not being afraid to take risks, you won me over.

Vol-xuqqix's opinions on Humanity, the synthetic singularity, and human potential are all I could ever hope to see in an application.

You've put serious thought into how your character feels about so many topics as well as how those topics have impacted him throughout life.

I could go on, but I really should wrap up this post.

Zao'qil stands out for a lot of reasons. How will you portray this character design you've worked so hard on? We'll just have to wait and see.

Application Accepted.

While I have your attention, consider a few things. Whenever you have spare time, PM me the name of his father's home. The place he's from has to have a name. You mention "his colony." Is it a planet, a city, or a township? Don't be afraid to go overkill on details if you feel the need.